1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer monitoring system, and more particularly to an automatic fault detection and recovery system for a computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, most of the computer systems adopt a low noise design that reduces operating noise occurring at the computer system itself as well as peripheral equipment for the purpose of improving the working environment. Thus, one can hardly hear the noise associated with the operation of the computer system during work. On the contrary, those computers adopting the low noise design result in difficulty of identification as to whether they are operating normally or have halted operation due to a failure until a task is finished.
In order to solve this problem, for example, there has been provided a monitoring apparatus with computer systems, for visibly displaying the normal operating state or halted state by using an LED device. The LED device is called a "heart-beat" unit and displays the operating status by its lighting mode. In such a monitoring system, a detector is associated with the system bus to detect the operating status of the computer system. If an operating signal, for example an address strobe signal is inputted into the detector, it outputs a signal to a first display driver that produces a periodic driving signal supplied to an LED. If no operating signal is found by the detector, the output signal is fed to a second display driver that produces a continuous LED driving signal. Thus, when LED is turned on and off for a preset time interval, i.e., blinks, users can recognize the normal operating state of the computer system. Also, the halted state of the computer system can be identified by the continuous lighting of the LED. If the system halt is recognized by the user, necessary measures can be taken to recover the computer system.
However, if they do not watch the LED carefully, the halted state of the computer system cannot be identified. In this regard, if the computer system is a remote computer connected by a local network and the system halt is occurring, there may be no remedy to recover the remote computer through a remote control. Further, if the computer system is a network server and operated in the night time without an operator, the system halt causes all works related to the server system to be stalled and may leave the system inoperative for a long time. In addition, if the user inadvertently resets or switches the power supply on or off during the halted state, a loss of processed data may occur in the computer system. Therefore, there was needed in the art a system that could protect against a halted state of the computer system and automatically recovers the system as soon as possible.
The following patents each disclose features in common with the present invention but do not teach or suggest the specifically recited automatic fault detection and recover system of a computer of the present invention: U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,711 to Burckhartt et al., entitled Computer Failure Recovery And Alert System, U.S. Pat. No. 5,600,785 Potter, entitled Computer System With Error Handling Before Reset, U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,711 Burckhartt et al., entitled Computer Failure Recovery And Alert System, U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,200 to Wagner et al., entitled Multiple Microprocessor Watchdog System, U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,285 to Drerup, entitled System Crash Detect And Automatic Reset Mechanism For Processor Cards, U.S. Pat. No. 4,594,685 to Owens, entitled Watchdog Timer, U.S. Pat. No. 4,803,682 to Hara et al., entitled Resetting System, U.S. Pat. No. 5,513,319 to Finch et al., entitled Watchdog Timer For Computer System Reset, U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,504 to Matsuda, entitled Monitoring Apparatus For Control system With Microcomputer, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,627,060 to Huang et al., entitled Watchdog Timer.